


To the Sea

by starbites



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Gen, James Kidd & Edward Kenway, Loss, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 19:46:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbites/pseuds/starbites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edward thinks he feels the world break apart beneath his feet. It's overdue, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Although I've warned you in the tags and summary I'll mention again - this fic contains spoilers! It was hard as hell trying to tag and put a summary for this without giving much away.  
> James Kidd/Mary Read completely stole my heart and then broke it into tiny pieces. So naturally I had to write about her death and torture myself even more.

Edward thinks he feels the world break apart beneath his feet.

He knew when he saw her lying there, too weak to even lift her head, but he didn’t want to believe it. He used his strength, his raw determination – things that had never failed him before – to move her and it did nothing. _Nothing_. She was gone. And now he is left with her cold body and no hope of seeing another smile or hearing her voice again.

His hand slides off her arm, a caress his fingers will ache for until the day he joins her, and it is only the shouting voices seeking to claim her from him that makes him move. He cradles Mary in his arms, like the baby she will never hold, and tells himself to run as fast as he can.

It is only now with her head tucked under his chin that he realises how small she actually is. James Kidd was always a slight figure, something Edward had teased her for, but it is only here with her hands across her barren belly that he notices how bird-bone frail her wrists are.

 _They killed her, the bastards, they let her die starved and in agony and in misery_. The most remarkable woman – most remarkable person – he’s ever met, who should have only ever died in old age, when stubbornness finally gave into the Reaper. Instead, she was taken away, from her child, from him, from everyone, and Edward suddenly finds himself having to face a world without her punches to his arm, her sharp tongue, her smile she got when her belief in him paid off.

Edward thinks he killed her a little too. The thought alone is enough to make his knees buckle, and he grimaces at his uselessness – this isn’t the time, get her to safety, get her away.

Even if the entire King’s army bore upon him now, Edward would only pause to place her gently down, before facing them all with nothing but the desperate anger in his fists. He is getting her out of there, there is no way this hellhole will claim Mary anymore. He had failed her so many times in her life, he knows that much, so he will not fail her now. Not when her last words – her last look – upon this world were still for him, were still encouraging him to be more than he’d become.

Edward sees Ah Tabai and Anne, and he wills the tears from his eyes. Not now Kenway, he curses silently, she’s not safe yet. They are waiting in a little boat, and it is fitting that Mary will be cast away from him upon the sea. It is a scene he had watched many times before, with her smirking at him as the ship leaves the harbour, his hand still in the air as he waves from the docks.

 _“You noticed that, did you?”_ her voice sounds in his head, and he places her down in the boat reverently, feeling pathetic and angry and lost and sick. He arranges her limbs as though he is tucking her into bed, like she is asleep and dreaming and is in danger of waking up if he isn’t careful enough.

Edward looks away, Mary’s face the palest he’s ever seen it, when Anne cries out. It is a sound that will forever be tied up to this memory, like the image of Mary slumped against the wall as she sighs her last breath, and it settles deep in his gut. He knows Anne’s heart is breaking at the sight of her dearest friend motionless before her, but he finds any words of comfort stick in his throat until he thinks he will choke on them.

“What will you do now?” Ah Tabai asks, and Edward knows it is a weighted question.

“Nothing sensible,” he manages, before he shuts his mouth firmly as an unbearable sadness washes over him.

Ah Tabai considers him, and looks back at Mary. He sees it now, sees why she always believed in Edward when he had disappointed her, why she was always there for him when he needed her. He was there for her when she was her weakest, when she needed him most, and Ah Tabai sees a shimmer of the Edward only Mary could ever see.

“You haven’t earned these,” he pauses. “But they suit you.”

It is not just the garb of the Assassins he holds out to Edward. In his dark, steady hands he is also holding out Mary’s belief in her Creed, her belief in matters beyond gold, her belief that Edward will do his part. Edward cannot refuse these again, and he takes them desperately, feels bitterness build in his mouth, wonders why he had never listened to her.

“Good fortune to you, Edward Kenway,” Ah Tabai says, with a mustered strength to his voice Edward can only wish for, and turns to the boat to bear Mary away.

Edward feels as though his good fortune has already left him, left him when Mary begged for him to put her down, but he says nothing. Instead, he stands there, his hands tight around the clothes, and watches as the small boat becomes like a star upon the horizon.

_To the sea then Mary and rest your head. Find Thatch and wait for me, I can’t imagine I’ll be too long.  
_


End file.
